I decided she was probably from Avinhelle, though Ilander's accent was much thicker. The Avinhelle folk were given to slavery, so that would make sense. But something about her didn't ring true; she didn't sound as subservient as she should if she were a slave.

"You are safe here," I said earnestly. "You may stay at Hurog if you wish. It might be wiser to stay down here until Garranon and Landislaw are gone, but that is up to you."

"Who are you to say this?" she asked scornfully after staring at the two of us a moment. "The both of you are little more than children." The effect was ruined when her voice broke.

Lines of weariness gathered about her mouth and eyes. Garranon and Landislaw had looked tired, but they'd been on horseback. She'd been a I looked down and muffled an exclamation. She'd been barefoot.

"Oreg," I said, ignoring her earlier question. "See her feet?"

He looked down. "I'll get a pail of water and some of Penrod's witch hazel brew from the stables," he said and vanished.

The woman's eyes widened, and she sat down abruptly. "Who are you?" This time there was no accusation in her voice.

"Ward," I said companionably. "My father, Fenwick of Hurog, died a few weeks ago, so I am Hurogmetena"though my uncle rules Hurog until I'm one and twenty."

"And he?" She asked gesturing vaguely at where Oreg had been standing.

"Oh, Oreg?" I thought about what I could tell her. "He's a friend."

"He is a wizard," she said, almost to herself.

"Well," I confided, deep in my role as idiot, because that was how I always dealt with people, "I really don't think he's a wizard. We have a wizard here, but he doesn't look at all like Oreg."

"Wizards don't all look alike," she said in surprise.

"Uncle Duraugh's wizard and Father's wizard look alike," I protested.

"That's because they're brothers, Ward," murmured Oreg gently, returning from his errands.

I blinked at him for a moment. It was easier than usual to look stupid. I wasn't used to him popping in and out in front of me. "Oh, right. I'd forgotten that."

I motioned her to a broken slab of rock that was just a little low to be comfortable.

"I'm pretty good at this," I said, taking the bucket from Oreg and setting it on the ground at a comfortable distance in front of her. "The Brat used to cut her feet up all the time because she didn't like wearing women's slippers. Got her some good woodsmen's boots. Mother didn't like them, but she didn't have to doctor the Brat's feet, either." By the time I finished speaking, she looked calmer.

I took the pottery bottle holding Penrod's brew and uncorked it. I poured a fair portion into the bucket. Cautiously, she put her feet into the bucket, hissing when the disinfectant touched the cuts. I dipped the clean vegetable brush Oreg handed me into the bucket and pulled out a foot.

She'd done some damage. The whole bottom of her foot was raw and embedded with dirt. Knowing that there was nothing I could do to lessen the pain of scrubbing, I set about doing it well once, so I wouldn't have to do it again. When I was satisfied I'd gotten all the grit and filth out of that foot, I set it back in the water and picked up the other one.

All in all, she was a strange slave, I thought. For one thing, she'd demonstrated she was mageborn when she'd thrown magic at us. Although I suppose a mage could be made a slave, I'd never heard of one. For another, tired as she must be, she had none of the dull helplessness I'd seen in all the slaves I'd ever met.

"What will your uncle do when he knows I'm here?" she asked tightly.

"He already knows," I replied, frowning. There was some infection starting on this foot already.

"My lord?" said Oreg, his face going distant. "Your uncle is looking for you. Supper is ready."

"Can you finish here?" I asked.

He nodded, his eyes still unfocused. "If you hurry, you can meet him in your rooms."

Garranon and Landislaw were seated on either side of my mother, across from my uncle and the Brat, while I sat at the head of the table. Garranon was his usual smooth self, but Landislaw was grim and silent.

"So," said Duraugh. "What is the news from court? I haven't been there since Winterfair."

Garranon set down the bite he had been going to eat and said, "King Jakoven is worried about Vorsag, still." Vorsag lay just to the south of the Five Kingdoms, along Oranstone's southernmost border. "The new ruler, Kariarn, is said to be unstable, and there is some question as to whether he will hold to his father's treaties."

"There was some question as to whether Kariarn's father would hold to the treaties," replied my uncle. "I've met Kariarn, and I'd say there is no question at all about him. He'll hold them as long as it suits him and not a moment more. I've heard that there have been Vorsagian border raids in Oranstone."

Garranon nodded. "I've sent most of my men back to my lands with my arms master."

"But your estate is more than six leagues from Vorsag," said Duraugh, his voice tautening from relaxed conversation to honest interest. "If there are bandits that far in, why isn't the king sending troops?"

"King Jakoven accepts Kariarn's claims that it's a few lone bandit clans increasing their activity, or even Oran-stonians doing the raiding themselves." I'd never heard Garranon utter a word against the high king, but there was a bitter edge to his voice. "Jakoven won't declare war over a few bandit raids."

"War?" I asked, trying to sound eager, the way an idiot who was good at fighting would say it.

Garranon shrugged. "The king won't go to war over Oranstone unless the Vorsag decide to start taking land rather than riches and lives." He said it with casual ease, and I wondered if I'd imagined the earlier bitterness. He was Oranstonian, but he'd been the king's lover for fifteen years.

I turned my outward attention to my food. War would mean leaving Hurog in the hands of a someone a while Duraugh, I, and the Blue Guard traveled all the way across the Five Kingdoms to Oranstone. With the threat of bad harvest, it wouldn't do Hurog any good at all, except there would be fewer mouths to feed.

Like my uncle, I'd met the Vorsagian king, Kariarn, at court. He was one of those men who was not particularly blessed in feature or form but left you believing he was. He'd been decked with bone charms and followed about by a handful of mages. The official word was that he was a mage himself, but I thought not. His attitude about magic was wrong for a wizard; reverently obsessive, when the wizards I knew reveled in it.

"Don't you, Ward?" asked Landislaw.

I looked up. "What? I was thinking."

He smiled. "Your uncle was just telling us about your father's horse. Said it was a killer, but you have it following you around like a lady's puppy."

"Easy to get a horse to follow you," I said cheerfully. " 'Nuther matter to ride him. Had me off three times this week."

"Hmm," said Landislaw neutrally. "I was observing to your uncle that you collect misfits like the stallion. You did it at court. Remember that gawky girl last year, Garranon? Even look at your sistera"though a woman who can't speak is not a bad thing. And now you're trying to add my slave."

Duraugh and Garranon smiled politely; the Brat looked nervous and tried to be invisible in her seat.

Mother looked up and said in the rambling-dreamy way she had this late in the day, "But of course he does. If he weren't the heir, he'd have been sent to apprentice with the mages, but his father wouldn't hear of it. The High King Jakoven himself commanded Fen to do it. We don't have nearly enough mages anymore. But before Fen could send him, there was that terrible accident. And then Ward wasn't at all suitable for learning magic." She turned back to her meal.

Landislaw frowned at her. "What does that have to do with Ward's strays?"

Mother chewed daintily and swallowed, then washed her food down with a small sip of wine. "He's a finder-like the ones in the stories. He finds lost thingsa"and they find him." Her pupils were pinpoints, though the hall was only dimly lit by oilcloth-covered skylights. I wondered which of the herbs in her garden she'd been eating. Dream-root didn't affect the pupils.

I'd almost expected her to get better after Father died, but she seemed instead to lose herself in the role of grieving widow. The woman who'd made my blocks move around the room was gone for good.

"I don't think it works that way, Lady Hurog," objected my uncle. "If he were still a finder, and Fen told me that his abilities disappeared when a " He glanced at me, but I chewed unworriedly and rather loudly on a raw carrot. "When he was hurt. If he were still a finder, he would find things; they wouldn't find him."

"Yes, dear," said Mother, just as she had to Father. "I'm sure you're right."

I coughed, feeling sorry for my uncle. It's hard to argue with someone who slides away from your point like wet oatmeal slides around a spoon. Garranon looked particularly uncomfortable, and it occurred to me that eating at a table with Mother and me would not be a treat.

I finished the last bit of bread on my wooden trencher and got up. Duraugh looked at me and frowned, trying to remind me that it was rude for the host to leave while people were still eating. But I thought I'd let Duraugh explain that Hurog was going to hold Landislaw's slave without me.

"Pansy," I said. "He needs some carrots." I showed everyone the ones I'd stolen from the table. The Brat grabbed the remnants of her bread and jumped up after me.

"All right," I said before my uncle could say something about her manners. "You can come. Stay out of the way. If Pansy hurts you, it will make him feel bad."

4a"WARDWICK.

Running is an act of cowardice. Not that cowardice is necessarily bad. As my aunt used to say, "Moderation in all things."

After I was through with Pansy, Ciarra followed me back to my room and manipulated me into a game of thieves and kings. The contest depended purely upon chance, and she was always confoundedly luckya"or else she knew how to cheat.

Oreg watched from his perch on his favorite stool and snickered or rolled his eyes at me as she trounced me. Oreg never hid from Ciarra unless there was someone else present.

"To bed," I said sternly when she'd beaten me yet again.

She laughed, kissed me on the cheek, and danced out of the room.

I waited until the door shut firmly behind her before I turned to Oreg. "How's our fugitive?"

He smiled lazily at me. "Sleeping. She'll stay underground until the other two leave. She doesn't like Landislaw much."

"Nor do I," I admitted freely. "I'll be happy when they're gone from here."

Someone knocked politely at my door.

"I'll just check on our sleeping guest and leave you to deal with Garranon," Oreg said and disappeared. His stool stayed on two legs for a moment before falling to the floor with a loud clatter.

I hadn't changed for bed yet, so I didn't even have to slow for my robes when I answered the knock. Garranon stood just outside the door.

"Hello," I said with an easy grin, holding the door back so he could come in.

He took the door out of my hand and closed it behind him. He stepped close to me and said, "I need your help, Ward."

I blinked at him stupidly. He needed my help?

"I found this in my brother's pack tonight," he said, taking a bundled cloth from his belt pouch. "I wondered if you had seen anything like it before."

As I bent down to get a closer look, he lifted the cloth and blew the gray green powder it had contained into my face. Before I fell, I saw him step back and cover his nose.

I awoke and dreamed that I was twelve again and I couldn't move. People shuffled about me, but I couldn't make sense of what they were saying. I screamed and howled in gibbering fear, but not even a whisper broke through my lips. Finally, the outside noises quieted, and for moment I thought it was because my ears had quit working, too.

Then Oreg's voice broke through the fog surrounding me.

"I had to wait until they left, Ward," he said urgently. "Don't be angry with me. Please, please don't be. I'll break you free of it. It's all right."

As the bonds of the magic Garranon used broke, I rolled to my knees with a gasp. "Ah gods," I pleaded, involuntary tears rolling down my face.

"Shh, shh," Oreg whispered, patting me anxiously on the hand. He kept his body angled away from me, afraid that I was going to hit him for not rescuing me sooner. His fear and my ability to move again brought me to myself.

"It's fine," I said. "Thank you." My voice sounded as hoarse as if I had screamed.

I wiped my face with shaking hands and realized I was on my own bed. I struggled to think. Why had Garranon imprisoned me in a spell and then left me in my room?

Oreg's head came up. "They're coming back. What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing," I said. "Not unless I ask you."

I could hear voices outside now. My uncle was very angry.

"Don't let them see you."

I stretched back out on the bed and closed my eyes.

"Not so stiff," warned Oreg, so I relaxed as well as I could as the door opened.

"My dear sir," said Garranon in a bored voice, "Ward is unfit to hold Hurog. To ensure for his proper care, he is to be delivered to the royal asylum in Estian as his father requested. I've shown you the king's writ. You don't even have to worry about the usual charges for this service. Knowing the state of Hurog's wealth, I have donated the fee myself."

My father had intended to imprison me in the King's Asylum?

"That was five years ago," argued my uncle. "Fenwick feared the damage to Ward was more extensive than it was."

"The Hurogmeten just didn't want to pay the fees," corrected Garranon dryly, "which I have done. The only thing you can affect now is who holds Hurog. If you help me recover the slave, I will see that you are named lord in Ward's place."

My uncle inhaled deeply in surprise or excitement. There was a long pause. What was taking him so long to accept? Here was his opportunity to have Hurog with no blame to himself.

Garranon's voice grew suck and sweet. "The king will listen to me on such a matter, especially since Ward's younger brother has been missing for over two years. Long enough to presume him dead."

"You tie my hands," said my uncle.

"You tied your own hands when you allowed the boy to make all the decisions," replied Garranon calmly. "When we found out the girl was headed here, I thought we might need this. I know your nephew from court. He recites ballads about Seleg by the hour to anyone who will listen."

Only to the people who really annoyed me, I thought.

"I knew he would hold to the old ways. He is too a innocent to be negotiated out of it. Unlike you and me."

A hand came down and rested briefly on my foreheada"my uncle's hand. "Do you torture puppies, too?" he murmured.

"To protect my brother I would." Garranon's voice was hard.

"I will speak to King Jakoven." Duraugh's tone held warning. "I am not without influence."

I couldn't see it without opening my eyes, but I heard Garranon's smile in his voice. "He will not reconsider. I will have that slave."